#U.S. Treasury bonds

[youthchronical]

2-year Treasury yield hits lowest level since October amid recession fears

U.S. Treasury yields were little changed on Tuesday as worries over the state of the U.S. economy persisted. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was 3 basis points higher at 4.244%. The 2-year Treasury yield was last flat to 3.897%, after falling to its lowest level since October. One basis point is equal to 0.01%, and yields and prices move in opposite directions. On Tuesday, investors were…

[saywhat-politics]

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a close ally of President Donald Trump, invested as much as $750,000 in U.S. Treasury bonds from mid- to late March, according to transaction disclosures reviewed by Sludge. The purchases, made in three transactions between March 17 and March 25, align with her vocal support for Trump’s recently imposed tariffs—policies that have triggered a sharp decline in stock markets.

[robertreich]

THE TRUMP SLUMP

Friends,

Recall that Trump was elected largely because Americans thought the economy was lousy and believed him when he said he’d fix it.

Now, seven weeks after his inauguration, the bottom is falling out. Stocks are plunging. Treasury yields are falling. Consumer confidence is dropping. Inflation is picking up.

Over the weekend, Trump refused to rule out a recession this year, telling Fox News there will be a “period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.”

Well, yes, if “very big” means destroying much of the federal government, allying with Putin against our traditional allies, and putting high tariff walls around America.

The cost of living — the single biggest problem identified by consumers over the last several years — is going up, not down. Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, and his threatened 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, are playing havoc with supply chains inside and outside America.

Trump’s trade war with China intensified today as China began imposing retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of American farm products. Food prices are rising.

Corporations are pulling back from investing in new productive capacity — additional jobs, equipment, factories — because Trump’s and Musk’s chaos makes it impossible for them to gauge what the future will bring. Joblessness is rising.

The S&P 500 was down more than 2 percent in this morning’s trading — after last week’s 3.1 percent drop (the biggest drop in six months) — signaling that investors are spooked.

Tesla's stock tumbled more than 8 percent this morning. Shares of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia and Meta Platform fell more than 2 percent.

Long-term bonds — which reveal investors’ expectations about the economy over the next decade — are also down. They expect hard times. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield slipped below 4.23 percent (it had settled Friday above 4.31 percent).

Even before this Trump slump, only the richest 10 percent of Americans had enough purchasing power to keep the economy going with their spending. The bottom 90 percent — including most Trump voters — were barely getting by. The next eighteen months could be rough on millions of people.

Will the Trump slump turn into a recession? How will Trump lie and cheat his way out of it? Stay tuned.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-trump-slump-is-now

[mariacallous]

The New Yorker Daily: Why Trump Backed Down on Tariffs

A week after Donald Trump shocked the world by imposing punitive tariffs on America’s trading partners, he shocked it again today when he announced a ninety-day pause on the biggest duties against most countries—notably excepting China, among a handful of others—while leaving in place a ten-per-cent across-the-board levy.

The Administration tried to spin the midday move, which sent stocks rocketing upward, as an example of the President’s dealmaking prowess, claiming that the tariffs had inspired new trade deals with many countries. But the reality seems to be that Trump caved in the face of alarming disruptions in the huge market for U.S. Treasury bonds, which the American government uses to finance itself.

Trump’s announcement of his “reciprocal” tariffs last week, which weren’t reciprocal at all, sent the markets into turmoil. The White House seemed to have steeled itself against an adverse reaction in the stock market, even as, by Wednesday morning, the total market had fallen by about twenty per cent from its high. What really spooked financial commentators—and Trump himself, as he conceded later on Wednesday, speaking outside the White House—was the turbulence in the bond market, where yields spiked on Monday and Tuesday.

A big sudden rise in bond yields equates to a big sudden fall in bond prices—which can be a sign that some financial institutions are in distress and being forced to sell at any price. On Tuesday, reports emerged that the source of this trouble might be the “basis trade,” a process in which hedge funds borrow gobs of money to profit on the tiny differences in price between Treasuries and derivative securities, contracts designed to replicate the performance of these same Treasuries. When bond prices move unexpectedly, basis traders can face big losses and be subjected to margin calls, forcing them to raise cash by selling some of their portfolio. And that selloff, in turn, forces prices even lower.

It’s not entirely clear that this was the actual cause of the rising yields in the bond market, but by this morning Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary, warned online that “developments in the last 24 hours suggest we may be headed for serious financial crisis wholly induced by US government tariff policy.” The current Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, himself a former hedge-fund manager, initially shrugged off the threat. But by Wednesday afternoon Bessent was spinning the capitulation as best he could. Referring to Trump, he said, “It took great courage for him to stay the course.”

If that was meant as an inside joke, Bessent didn’t let on. More likely, he was trying to assuage his boss’s bruised ego. In the end, the markets forced Trump to do something sensible—announce a timeout—but a lot of damage has already been done to 401(k) plans, business planning, consumer confidence, and faith in the U.S. government. None of these things will be repaired easily or quickly.

[todaysdocument]

Notice concerning treasury notes taken during a Confederate raid in St. Alban's, Vermont

Record Group 233: Records of the U.S. House of RepresentativesSeries: Accompanying PapersFile Unit: Accompanying Papers of the 43rd Congress

LOSS OF

U. S. 7-30 TREASURY NOTES

WITH COUPONS AND U. S. COUPON BONDS.

Taken from the First National Bank of St. Albans, Vt., by raiders,

on the 19th of October, 1864, the following 7-30 Treasury Notes and

U. S. 5-20 Bonds, together with all coupons attached, the coupons of

former payable the 15th of August and 15th of February, and those

of the latter payable May 1 and November 1, of each year, viz:

4 $1,000 7-30 Treasury Notes, Nos. 18,681 to 18,684 inclusive.

19 $500 " " " Nos. 28,083 to 28,101 "

102 $100 " " " Nos. 184,073 to 184,172 "

also Nos. 142,563 and 142,574

109 $50 " " " Nos. 16,285 to 16,296 "

20,587 to 20,640 "

30,088 to 30,096 "

134,960 to 134,980 "

20,645 to 20,646 "

20,665 to 20,673 "

134,947 and 30,081

all payable to blank order and dated Aug. 15, 1864.

Also one $1,000 U. S. 5-20 Coupon Bond, No. 7,901, no series,

and two $100 U.S. 5-20 Coupon Bonds, Nos. 45,087 and 45,089, 2d

series, dated May 1, 1862.

The above mentioned Treasury Notes and Bonds have been cave-

ated upon the Books of the Treasury Department, and this notice is

to warn all persons against purchasing either the Treasury Notes,

Bonds, or Coupons.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

This Is Why Dictatorships Fail

April 10, 2025

He blinked. But we don’t really know why.

Whether it was the stock market cascading downward, investors fleeing from U.S. Treasury bonds, Republican donors jamming the White House phones, or even fears for his own portfolio, President Donald Trump decided yesterday afternoon to lift, temporarily, most of his arbitrary tariffs. This was his personal decision. His “instinct,” as he put it. His whim. And his decision, instinct, or whim could bring the tariffs back again.

The Republicans who lead Congress have refused to use the power of the legislative branch to stop him or moderate him, in this or almost any other matter. The Cabinet is composed of sycophants and loyalists who are willing to defend contradictory policies, even if doing so makes them look like fools. The courts haven’t decisively intervened yet either. No one, apparently, is willing to prevent a single man from destroying the world economy, wrecking financial markets, forcing this country and other countries into recession if that’s what he feels like doing when he gets up tomorrow morning.

This is what arbitrary, absolute power looks like. And this is why the men who wrote the Constitution never wanted anyone to have it. In that famously hot, stuffy room in Philadelphia, windows closed for the sake of secrecy, they sweated and argued about how to limit the powers of the American executive. They arrived at the idea of dividing power between different branches of government. As James Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 47”: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

More than two centuries later, the system created by that first Constitutional Congress has comprehensively failed. The people and institutions that are supposed to check executive power are refusing to restrain this president. We now have a de facto tyrant who thinks he can bend reality to his will without taking any facts or any evidence into consideration, and without listening to any contrary views. And although the economic damage he has caused is easier to measure, he has inflicted the same level of harm to scientific research, to civil liberties, to health care, and to the civil service.

From this wasteful and destructive incident, one useful lesson can be drawn. In recent years, many people who live in democracies have become frustrated by their political systems, by the endless wrangling, the difficulty of creating compromise, the slow pace of decisions. Just as in the first half of the 20th century, would-be authoritarians have begun arguing that we would all be better off without these institutions. “The truth is that men are tired of liberty,” said Mussolini. Lenin spoke with scorn about the failings of so-called bourgeois democracy. In the United States, a brand-new school of techno-authoritarian thinkers find our political system inefficient and want to replace it with a “national CEO,” a dictator by a different name.

But in the past 48 hours, Donald Trump has just given us a pitch-perfect demonstration of why legislatures are necessary, why checks and balances are useful, and why most one-man dictatorships become poor and corrupt. If the Republican Party does not return Congress to the role it is meant to play and the courts don’t constrain the president, this cycle of destruction will continue and everyone on the planet will pay the price.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian:

On Wednesday, Democratic Senate and House leaders launched their “day of action” to underscore the MAGA attack on Social Security. Members visited Social Security offices to denounce “Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE’s cuts to Social Security.” In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), according to Axios, launched “a digital ad campaign against Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Susan Collins (R-ME.)” seeking to tie the Senators to efforts to dismantle Social Security. Cuts to entitlement programs as well as those that serve the elderly, the sick, the young, the poor, and the middle class are driven by MAGA budget maneuvers to secure massive tax cuts for the rich at the expense of…everyone else. The budget might be less remarked upon than the disastrous tariff war Donald Trump has recklessly implemented, but it also threatens to exact real pain on vulnerable Americans while damaging the long-term interests of the American economy. While we wait for the next shoe to drop in the constitutional standoff between Donald Trump and the rule of law, we must not ignore this looming fiscal disaster. [...]

The “radical agenda that at the least, will add trillions of dollars to the national debt,” envisions $5.3 trillion in tax cuts that will overwhelmingly benefit the super-rich and add “more to the deficit (and debt) than the last five major pieces of spending legislation combined.” That’s right. “It dwarfs the $2 trillion of additional deficits created by the three major pieces of legislation passed under President Joe Biden.” The hypocrisy of MAGA Republicans (who decried the runup in the debt) should hardly surprise those who have watched the GOP morph from a conservative party to a reactionary, unhinged cult of personality relying on phony math and outright lies. To put this in perspective, our debt under the MAGA plan would increase to 134 percent of the economy by 2034. Worse, that debt will be much harder to sell, and repayment interest will grow higher as Trump destroys confidence in the U.S. economy, investors dump Treasury bonds, and the Treasury is forced to raise yields (interest rates) to finance our debt. In other words, Trump is making us more dependent on debt holders, including places like China. He is making China richer; the U.S. poorer.

Moreover, Republican would have us rack up mounds of debt not to get roads, bridges, universal internet, and other productive investments—but instead to reward billionaires. In a letter to the public, Senate Democrats made clear: “The Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans are planning to give another round of tax handouts to the ultra-wealthy and corporations that are paid for by gutting the healthcare you and your family need to stay safe and healthy.” The only way to make even the fuzzy MAGA math work is to enact historic, crippling cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and SNAP food benefits. Many Americans are unaware whom Medicaid benefits. “Seniors living in nursing homes, children with disabilities who need home-based care, and veterans for whom Medicaid is a lifeline will shoulder the harm caused by these cuts, all while Republicans’ tax breaks make corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk even wealthier,” as Democrats explain. Add healthcare for children (under CHIPS) and treatment for mental health and drug addiction, and the universe of people covered rises to 79,034,066 people. That works out to nearly 1 in 4 Americans. [...] In sum, MAGA Republicans are ready to wreck your lives to keep their seats. It is incumbent upon all Americans to make clear that if they try to do so, those lawmakers will join the ranks of the unemployed in 2026.

The GOP and the Trump Regime are en route to causing economic calamity.

[youthchronical]

10-year Treasury yield rises above 4.3% as traders ignore noisy jobs report

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose as traders downplayed October jobs data showing meager job growth that was hurt by hurricanes and striking workers, and was far below what Wall Street was expecting. The 10-year Treasury yield jumped nearly 10 basis points at 4.382%. The 2-year Treasury yield was higher by 5 basis points at 4.216%. The uptick in yields marks a continuation of their recent…

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

He blinked. But we don’t really know why.

Whether it was the stock market cascading downward, investors fleeing from U.S. Treasury bonds, Republican donors jamming the White House phones, or even fears for his own portfolio, President Donald Trump decided yesterday afternoon to lift, temporarily, most of his arbitrary tariffs. This was his personal decision. His “instinct,” as he put it. His whim. And his decision, instinct, or whim could bring the tariffs back again.

The Republicans who lead Congress have refused to use the power of the legislative branch to stop him or moderate him, in this or almost any other matter. The Cabinet is composed of sycophants and loyalists who are willing to defend contradictory policies, even if doing so makes them look like fools. The courts haven’t decisively intervened yet either. No one, apparently, is willing to prevent a single man from destroying the world economy, wrecking financial markets, forcing this country and other countries into recession if that’s what he feels like doing when he gets up tomorrow morning.

This is what arbitrary, absolute power looks like. And this is why the men who wrote the Constitution never wanted anyone to have it. In that famously hot, stuffy room in Philadelphia, windows closed for the sake of secrecy, they sweated and argued about how to limit the powers of the American executive. They arrived at the idea of dividing power between different branches of government. As James Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 47”: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

More than two centuries later, the system created by that first Constitutional Congress has comprehensively failed. The people and institutions that are supposed to check executive power are refusing to restrain this president. We now have a de facto tyrant who thinks he can bend reality to his will without taking any facts or any evidence into consideration, and without listening to any contrary views. And although the economic damage he has caused is easier to measure, he has inflicted the same level of harm to scientific research, to civil liberties, to health care, and to the civil service.

From this wasteful and destructive incident, one useful lesson can be drawn. In recent years, many people who live in democracies have become frustrated by their political systems, by the endless wrangling, the difficulty of creating compromise, the slow pace of decisions. Just as in the first half of the 20th century, would-be authoritarians have begun arguing that we would all be better off without these institutions. “The truth is that men are tired of liberty,” said Mussolini. Lenin spoke with scorn about the failings of so-called bourgeois democracy. In the United States, a brand-new school of techno-authoritarian thinkers find our political system inefficient and want to replace it with a “national CEO,” a dictator by a different name.

But in the past 48 hours, Donald Trump has just given us a pitch-perfect demonstration of why legislatures are necessary, why checks and balances are useful, and why most one-man dictatorships become poor and corrupt. If the Republican Party does not return Congress to the role it is meant to play and the courts don’t constrain the president, this cycle of destruction will continue and everyone on the planet will pay the price.

[saywhat-politics]

After Trump proclaimed that "no other president would have done what I did," one X user noted sarcastically, "Yes. Correct."

A lot of people said, “Yippee!” after Donald Trump paused high tariffs on most countries on Wednesday.

And so did the president, but his use of the word was more of an attack and effort to shift blame than the exclamation of relief from people whose financial futures were at risk from what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called “government by chaos.”

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he backed down and implemented the pause because he “thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line” and “were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.” In fact, markets were plummeting, likely sending the U.S. into a recession, while Treasury bond yields were also going up — a harbinger of a serious financial crisis, experts said.  

But on Wednesday afternoon, Trump praised his previous actions, noting that “No other president would have done what I did. No other president. I know the presidents. They wouldn’t have done it.”

[misfitwashere]

ROBERT REICH

MAR 10

Friends,

Apologies for intruding on your inbox for a second time today, but the message we’re getting from stock and bond markets deserves your attention. 

Recall that Trump was elected largely because Americans thought the economy was lousy and believed him when he said he’d fix it. 

Now, seven weeks after his inauguration, the bottom is falling out. Stocks are plunging. Treasury yields are falling. Consumer confidence is dropping. Inflation is picking up. 

Over the weekend, Trump refused to rule out a recession this year, telling Fox News there will be a “period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.” 

Well, yes, if “very big” means destroying much of the federal government, allying with Putin against our traditional allies, and putting high tariff walls around America. 

The cost of living — the single biggest problem identified by consumers over the last several years — is going up, not down. Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, and his threatened 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, are playing havoc with supply chains inside and outside America. 

Trump’s trade war with China intensified today as China began imposing retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of American farm products. Food prices are rising. 

Corporations are pulling back from investing in new productive capacity — additional jobs, equipment, factories — because Trump’s and Musk’s chaos makes it impossible for them to gauge what the future will bring. Joblessness is rising. 

The S&P 500 was down more than 2 percent in this morning’s trading — after last week’s 3.1 percent drop (the biggest drop in six months) — signaling that investors are spooked. 

Tesla's stock tumbled more than 8 percent this morning. Shares of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia and Meta Platform fell more than 2 percent.

Long-term bonds — which reveal investors’ expectations about the economy over the next decade — are also down. They expect hard times. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield slipped below 4.23 percent (it had settled Friday above 4.31 percent).

Even before this Trump slump, only the richest 10 percent of Americans had enough purchasing power to keep the economy going with their spending. The bottom 90 percent — including most Trump voters — were barely getting by. The next eighteen months could be rough on millions of people. 

Will the Trump slump turn into a recession? How will Trump lie and cheat his way out of it? Stay tuned. 

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil Finance Ministry expects inflation, interest, exchange rates to fall

While U.S. economists denounce the policy as illogical, Brazilian officials see potential for lower inflation and new trade opportunities

“It’s now clear that the Trump administration computed reciprocal tariffs without using tariff data. This is to economics what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science. The Trump tariff policy makes little sense EVEN if you believe in protectionist mercantilist economics.”

The sharply worded response from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers on X captured the tone of most American economists reacting to Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariff proposal. In Brazil, however, officials at the Ministry of Finance are cautiously hopeful. So far, they view the outlook as relatively benign for the Brazilian economy—reflected in growing investor interest in Brazilian assets, both in government bonds and stocks traded on the B3 exchange.

A projected 4-percentage-point decline in global trade in 2025, as forecast by the World Trade Organization, supports the view that global economic activity will slow. This could pave the way for the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, with Brazil following suit. Additionally, the weakening of the U.S. dollar—driven by recession fears—and falling oil prices, due to uncertainty around global demand, could further ease inflationary pressures.

A 10% surcharge on a trade relationship already in deficit from Brazil’s perspective is not negligible. In 2024, the U.S. recorded its third-largest trade surplus—$28.6 billion—globally. Moreover, key sectors of Brazilian industry are already feeling the effects of a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, in place since March. Brazil plans to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the issue.

Continue reading.

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump backed down from his trade war against the rest of the world Wednesday, at least temporarily, after his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement tanked financial markets across the globe.

Trump announced on his social media platform that he is reducing tariffs on all countries to 10% for 90 days, rather than the higher rates he had misleadingly described as “reciprocal” tariffs last week. However, he said, China’s exports to the U.S. would now see a 125% tariff.

The stock market rallied at the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 6% on the day shortly after 2 p.m. Eastern time. It remains 2,000 points below its standing on “Liberation Day,” when Trump announced his massive tariff plan last week.

Trump’s cave came with relatively little warning and mere hours after he, his press secretary and other members of his administration had insisted there would be no pause and no negotiation on tariffs many conservatives had come to tout as a necessary burst of short-term pain to bring manufacturing back to America.

Why the announcement came just hours after the higher tariffs took effect, rather than the day before or Monday, remains unclear, but economists speculated that the 10-year Treasury bond yield remaining high was indicating a deeper problem setting in.

“It was a puzzling development and one that doesn’t bode well,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist and former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Trump soon confirmed that at a photo opportunity with race car winners. “The bond market is very tricky, I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it’s beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. But yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy,” he told reporters. “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy. They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”

While providing short-term relief to the markets, the decision to back down has provided little guidance to America’s financial and political future. The stated goals of Trump’s tariff strategy ― a revival of manufacturing, a supposed burst of federal government revenue and an effort to reach new deals ― remain contradictory, with few economists willing to endorse his strategies.

Holtz-Eakin pointed out that even with the rollback, the United States now has the highest tariffs of any industrialized nation ― a situation that most investors and business leaders would have been horrified over just weeks ago.

“I’m very confused by the jubilation at this,” he said. “We have yet to understand what this whole thing will accomplish.”

[soon-palestine]

"As Israel continues its relentless bombing of Palestinians, raising the death toll in Gaza to over 27,000 people, state & local treasuries across the United States are investing 100s of millions in the state of Israel by purchasing Israeli bonds."

[marta-bee]

The tariff shenanigans continue. Honestly, not much has changed with the tariffs themselves since my last post. Small businesses keep hurting, people keep worrying over their retirement savings, Mr. Trump keeps jacking up the tariffs on China and nobody really knows how to plan because they don't know what things will look like after ninety days. All of which sucks, obviously. But at the level of news and analysis and thinking things through, it's not new.

I do keep hearing Trump voters saying they didn't vote for this. It fascinates me: yes, they did! Trump has never been shy about his love of tariffs, he's been wanting to enact them for decades. It's perhaps fair to say they didn't hope for this, or didn't expect it, the same way they only expected him to deport the truly violent immigrants. But that's different. There's a lot of the Leopards Face-eating Party-style schadenfreude here, but also a lot of all people acting and talking like: all politicians lie and don't follow through, in the first term Trump was surrounded by political grown-ups and wasn't as extreme as he campaigned for, and him saying enough extreme and contradictory things. They chose the positions they liked and ignored the rest. I don't know whether it's a political Rorschach test or if we're playing Schrodinger's candidate here, but I've seen a lot of that these last few months.

I vacillate a lot here. Trump can be a bit hard to read, and harder still to screw up the intellectual courage to look clear-eyed at what he promised. On the other hand (Tevye-style), we've been at this for a decade now. We should be better at that.

Along those lines, this focus group with MSNBC's Alex Wagner is fascinating. I don't agree with them, of course, but it did strike me how their economic lives are so much more unpredictable and exposed than mine. And how that affected their reasoning was interesting.

More links discussing tariffs, recession fears, and the latest showdown with the Fed, below the cut.

The Great Tariff Saga Continues

‘Liberation day’: what are tariffs and why do they matter?

Trump’s tariff hike on China raised the average rate, despite other pauses. (X)

Trump believes that if the US has a trade deficit with a country, they’re “beating” us. Huh? (X)

The Trade Deficit Is a Sign of Wealth (X)

‘Oligarchy’: Trump exempts big oil donors from tariffs package

Trump’s incoherent trade policy will do lasting damage. Even after his backtracking, the president has done profound harm to the world economy. (X)

As China retaliates against tariffs, it is also making strategic manoeuvres on EU and Asia to maximise opportunities

Why Beijing is not backing down on tariffs

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants trading partners to limit China’s involvement in their economies in exchange for concessions on reciprocal tariffs (X)

Trump claims his tariffs are bringing in $2 billion a day - the actual figure is just a fraction of that (X)

Scott Bessent: the man who saved the world economy... for now (X)

Bond Market’s Reaction to Trump’s Tariffs Much Worse Than Stock Market’s (X)

Bond market moves raise fears of growing bets against America. Treasury yields have been behaving unusually, sparking concerns that the typical “safe haven” investment might be losing some of its shine. (X)

Specific Impacts of Tariffs

The American consumer’s identity crisis: A vibe shift, heralded by a sea of red (X)

Why farmers affected by tariffs are still supporting Trump.

Tariffs threaten to upend markets American farmers depend on

‘Liberation Day’ comes for California almonds. President Donald Trump’s trade wars are grinding up California’s most iconic nut. (X)

Trump’s proposed tariffs may cause shortages of Canadian-made drugs in the U.S., analysis finds (X)

Slumping Oil Prices Reflect Intensifying Economic Worries. Fears that President Trump’s tariffs could slash global economic growth — and demand for oil as a result — were weighing on the market. (X)

Analysts: Trump tariffs ‘worse than the worst case scenario’ for tech investors.

U.S. exempts smartphones, computers from global Trump tariffs (X), then threatens new tariffs days later.

Buzzkill: Trump’s trade wars threaten America’s craft brewers already reeling from changing tastes

Every car is about to get more expensive. ‘It’s just math,’ former Ford CEO says (X)

Not just car prices: Car and home insurance likely to go up with US tariffs. (X)

A $5 million Idaho company that sells on Amazon shows how China tariffs will crush ‘Main Street’ U.S. firms — while Chinese rivals, and Amazon, will be fine (X)

The Upstate region of South Carolina was saved by foreign companies after the fall of its textile industry. Now, tariffs pose another round of uncertainty. (X)

Hong Kong will stop shipping small packages to the U.S. after Trump drops ‘de minimis’ exemption that let Shein and Temu sell to Americans (X)

Trump's Showdown with Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve

Trump Studying Whether Removing Powell Is Option, Hassett Says (X)

Trump’s attacks on Powell threaten the Fed’s independence. Here’s why it matters

Trump Needs Someone to Blame. The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, is that someone. (X)

The Lesson of Trump vs. Powell: Their dispute is a reminder that monetary policy can’t make up for economic policy errors like tariffs. (X)

Do Not Sleepwalk Through Trump’s Attack on the Fed’s Independence (X) (On how an independent Fed impacts ordinary Americans.)

Trump wants Powell out of the Fed. Waiting in the wings is Kevin Warsh (X)

Elizabeth Warren warns of a stock market crash if Trump can fire Jerome Powell (X)

Is Trump threatening the Fed's independence with attacks on Fed Chair Jerome Powell?

Other Financial and Economy-Related Shenanigans

As egg prices soared at the supermarket, so did producer profits (X)

Sanders: ‘The job you have today ain‘t going to be here in 10 or 15 years’

Democrats unveil legislation raising federal minimum wage to $17 an hour. This probably falls into the category of "never gonna happen," but still it's good to make the GOP take a stand against it.

US lays out plans to hit Chinese ships with port fees

The Longer View

Tariffs aren’t helping globalization’s losers — they’re victimizing them again. (X)

President says 1929 Depression ‘would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy,’ a statement most experts disagree with. (X)

Yellen Says Treasuries Show US Confidence Loss, Not Dysfunction (X)

Trump’s tariffs are ‘a game changer,’ not only for U.S. economy but for the world. Highest tariff rate since 1910 may cause many countries to enter recession, one economist says. (X)

Trump tariffs aim to revive U.S. manufacturing. Is that possible? (X)

The world is shocked by Trump’s tariff tantrums — it shouldn’t be.